Put the "mobile" back into mobile computing! Whether you're at your desk or in the boardroom, the Linksys wireless PC card allows you to share printers, files, and other resources anywhere within your LAN infrastructure, increasing your productivity and keeping you in touch.
The Linksys wireless PC card now has a new higher-powered antenna that provides greater ranges than ever. The increased sensitivity helps filter out interference and "noise" to keep your signal clear. Improved error correction in the chipset keeps you operating at higher transmission rates for longer distances. And, since you only need one Type II or III PCMCIA CardBus slot, you're free to use your other slots for additional accessories.
Ready to run in Type II or III PCMCIA CardBus-equipped notebook PCs running Windows 98, 2000, Me, and XP, the Linksys network PC card is truly a must-have for all notebook PC users.
Using the 802.11a networking standard, the Linksys wireless PC card can reach maximum data transfer rates of 72 Mbps (turbo mode), when used with the Linksys WAP54A Wireless 802.11a access point, and up to 54 Mbps when used in a peer-to-peer network or with other 802.11a products. The WPC54A features 152-bit WEP encryption, for higher security than 802.11b products.
Note that 802.11a wireless products do not function with 802.11b wireless products.
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See a comparison diagram of the different wireless technologies. | Wireless networks are rapidly becoming more popular and coming down in price. Since they don't require cables, you can use the devices anywhere in an office or home, even out on the patio. There's no need to roll out an Ethernet network cable to each room of a house; you can network anywhere -- without wires. Outside of the home, wireless networking is available in hotspots at coffee shops, businesses, airports -- great when you're on the road and need to get some work done. For convenience, wireless networking is the answer.
What Wireless Standard is Right for Me?
Now that you've decided to create a wireless network, the next step is to figure out which wireless standard to use. Basically, a standard is a set of specifications for a device. All devices that follow a specific standard share operating characteristics, such as the radio frequency used and maximum data transfer speed.
For wireless networking, there are three standards to choose from at this time: To learn about the differences between the standards and select the right one for your network, click here for an easy-to-understand chart. |
The Wireless PC Card now has a new higher-powered antenna that provides greater ranges than ever. The increased sensitivity helps filter out interference and "noise" to keep your signal clear. Improved error correction in the chipset keeps you operating at higher transmission rates for longer distances. And, since you only need one Type II or III PCMCIA CardBus slot, you're free to use your other slots for additional accessories. Ready to run in Type II or III PCMCIA CardBus-equipped notebook PCs running Windows 98, Millennium, 2000, and XP, the Instant Wireless Network PC Card from Linksys is truly a "must-have" for all notebook PC users.
1 DO NOT BUY THIS THING--NEW OR USED!!!
These things do not work. I have two of them that I can't get to function in any PC I put them in. I tried them on Windows 98SE, Windows 2000, Windows XP. One of them totally locks up every PC I put them in. I got the other one to work for about 5 minutes and then it has never worked since.
2 A Product or Support Issue?
I purchased a Linksys WPC54A and a WAP54A. The WPC54a card will not work. Not under WIN XP, not under WIN 98SE.
Calling Linksys tech support (on 3 separate occasions) did not help. They blamed the notebook (a Fujitsu and Acer) or an IRQ incompatibility (although I told them the IRQ used by the WPC54A card was available).
Bottom line ... I have 2 Linksys products that do not work.
3 WPC54A Review
I am extremely happy with this product and its corresponding WAP54A wireless access point. I would steer clear of the dual-band as I have heard and seen nothing but bad news on that product.
I have the WPC54A card for multiple laptops at home, one running Windows ME, one running Windows 98SE, and one running Windows 2000.
I have never had a problem and this product is much faster and has a better range that the 2.4GHz products, which I had before the WPC54A and WAP54A came out.
4 WPC54A Does not work...
I bought this WPC54A adapter for use with my Linksys WRT51AB access point under Windows XP but was completely unable to get it to work. It always locked up my Gateway Solo 9550 laptop within 10 seconds of plugging it in. I tried the later drivers as per tech support and after that my laptop froze immediately every time upon inserting the card. Tech support suggests that this may be an IRQ conflict, but there is no way to change the IRQ. I returned the card to CompUSA and got a Netgear HA501A card and it worked right out of the box (except turbo mode, apparently it doesn't work well with Windows XP, which by the way, is mentioned nowhere on the box). Bottom line, do your research before you buy and you will see that Linksys has some serious issues to work out with the WPC54A wireless card. Good Luck...
5 WPC54A for Christmas :-(
I asked my wife to get me this and the dual-band WAP from Linksys for Christmas. Normally I do my homework and research something before I buy it, in this case I didn't and I got burned.
I am seeing a lot of the same problems that have been reported here. I have a Toshiba Satellite running XP. I got the system lockups as well. Updating the driver from the Linksys website (actually a clean install after doing a complete hard restore on the laptop!) seemed to alleviate the lockup problem. Otherwise, the card works fine for a while but eventually stops seeing the WAP (<10'). The behavior is consistent with a temperature problem although once things get hosed, its pretty hard to recover even with things turned off overnight. Swapping slots never really helped.
I contacted Lynksys and they are sending me an exchange unit. I didn't spend much time on the phone with tech support before they concluded that I needed to return/exchange it with them. It kind of surprised me at the time that we didn't spend much more time investigating driver versions etc. Now I know why. I also flat out asked him if this was a chronic problem with this card and he apparently lied to me and said "no".
We shall see how the replacement unit works. I am not very optimistic. I purchased it through Compusa.com and they have a piddly 14 day return/exchange policy so at this point my fate lies with Linksys.
What a disapppointment.
BTW, I also purchased an airport card for my iBook and it has not had a single issue working with the Linksys WAP (using 802.11b). Maybe all the Mac crazies aren't that off the mark?
6 Tablet PC Woes with WPC54A
I spent many hours with Linksys Tech trying resolve be inability to make a connection with this card in my ACER Tablet PC running XP Pro all to no avail. The last time I tried to get some result, it locked up and I got a Stop Error message. From what I see in the other reviews, I see it isn't something I'm doing but simply a bad product. Too bad because usually Linksys is a good product. I had a dead out of the box DLINK card also in the 802.11a speed so clearly the chipsets at this level aren't totally debugged. Stay clear of this card.
7 Unending pain and suffering
I've had pretty good luck with other Linksys products in the past, but this thing will drive you insane. I am using a Dell Inspiron 8200 with XP Home Edition and the new Linksys dual band AP. One day it works, the next day it won't...literally. Lots of bluescreens and hangups. Sometimes XP doesn't even see the hardware in Device Manager?!? I found swapping the PCMCIA slot seems to help sometimes, but the connection is pretty unstable even when you are in the same room as the AP. I've tried changing the channels, SSID, and WAP keys, but the bad behavoir continues. Tech support is clueless..they just lecture you on how you have to be within range of the AP...I'm 3 feet away, not in a lead bunker! Now I am stuck with ..useless hardware. My suggestion? Go buy yourself 100' of cat5 cable and you will be a lot happier.
8 This card ...... and it's not a Linksys issue....or is it?
I am trying to use this wireless card in a Dell Latitude C810. Big mistake. This card merely causes the system to hard lock up and a reboot is necessary to get it back. Upgrading the BIOS had no effect. Apparently, D-Link is having the same issues with their card based on the same Atheros chipset. I am now stuck with a piece of junk which I can't sell and can't use. Very nice. Atheros, Linksys, D-link....get your stuff together!!!
9 WPC54A problems.
The card installed properly with the shipped drivers on a Win98SE machine, but file transfers stopped every 6-8 seconds for 1 to 2 seconds. Just enough to sometimes disconnect the remote machine. New drivers on Linksys Web page (1.04.00.39) fixed the problem, but disabled Turbo Mode. A call to Linksys confirmed that Turbo Mode has been disabled in the Drivers (at least for Win98SE). A few days later the card began to fail when hot. My retailer swapped the card for a new one. I patched the registry, changing "Turbo Mode" from 0 to 1, and now everything works O.K.
10 Do not spend your hard earned cash on this POS!!
Ok. I bought the WAP54a & a single WPC54a card. I am not kidding when I tell you that this is an orphaned product. The drivers are so buggy that they can hang any machine. I think that most of the problems are related to the physical manufacturing of the WPC54a card itself as I can get a good connection if I physically pull the protruding portion of the card upwards. Other than that, the connection fails miserably. -hrm? Regardless... It's orphaned which means that the mfg simply does not support it in any real fashion.
11 Lemon alert!
I bought the WPC54A and Linksys' new dual band WAP51AB Access Point. I've not reached any conclusions on the Dual Band Access Point yet, but the WPC54A is most definitely a dog. I tried it in a Dell Latitude w/ Win2K & in a Toshiba Tecra w/ Win98; the WPC54A stumbled, staggered, farted and fell down in both machines. WPC54A misbehavior occurred when it was on the same table as the Access Point (< 4 feet separation), and when it was separated from the AP at ranges of from 20 to 40 feet.
Most irritating was that when the WPC54A "hung" it locked up both of my laptops such that the only way to recover control was to cycle power... this is _extremely_ bad behavior for a driver. I say most irritating because these flaws are so obvious that Linksys' management must have known about them, and decided to shovel these pigs out the door anyway. ...talk about corporate greed!
I tried to resolve the problems through Linksys' tech support. While the technicians were courteous, I got no satisfaction from the hour and a half I spent on the phone (45 minutes waiting on the firat tech to answer my call). They indicated that this was a new product, and apparently they had little training or experience with it. In the end they found no problems with the setup and configuration I had when I called.
Stay away from this one. I'm rating the WPC54A as one star because there isn't a "zero star" rating.
12 Lemon alert!
I bought the WPC54A and Linksys' new dual band WAP51AB Access Point. I've not reached any conclusions on the Dual Band Access Point yet, but the WPC54A is most definitely a dog. I tried it in a Dell Latitude w/ Win2K & in a Toshiba Tecra w/ Win98; the WPC54A stumbled, staggered, farted and fell down in both machines. WPC54A misbehavior occurred when it was on the same table as the Access Point (< 4 feet separation), and when it was separated from the AP at ranges of from 20 to 40 feet.
Most irritating was that when the WPC54A "hung" it locked up both of my laptops such that the only way to recover control was to cycle power... this is _extremely_ bad behavior for a driver. I say most irritating because these flaws are so obvious that Linksys' management must have known about them, and decided to shovel these pigs out the door anyway. ...talk about corporate greed!
I tried to resolve the problems through Linksys' tech support. While the technicians were courteous, I got no satisfaction from the hour and a half I spent on the phone (45 minutes waiting on the firat tech to answer my call). They indicated that this was a new product, and apparently they had little training or experience with it. In the end they found no problems with the setup and configuration I had when I called.
Stay away from this one. I'm rating the WPC54A as one star because there isn't a "zero star" rating.
13 Lemon alert!
I bought the WPC54A and Linksys' new dual band WAP51AB Access Point. I've not reached any conclusions on the Dual Band Access Point yet, but the WPC54A is most definitely a dog. I tried it in a Dell Latitude w/ Win2K & in a Toshiba Tecra w/ Win98; the WPC54A stumbled, staggered, farted and fell down in both machines. WPC54A misbehavior occurred when it was on the same table as the Access Point (< 4 feet separation), and when it was separated from the AP at ranges of from 20 to 40 feet.
Most irritating was that when the WPC54A "hung" it locked up both of my laptops such that the only way to recover control was to cycle power... this is _extremely_ bad behavior for a driver. I say most irritating because these flaws are so obvious that Linksys' management must have known about them, and decided to shovel these pigs out the door anyway. ...talk about corporate greed!
I tried to resolve the problems through Linksys' tech support. While the technicians were courteous, I got no satisfaction from the hour and a half I spent on the phone (45 minutes waiting on the firat tech to answer my call). They indicated that this was a new product, and apparently they had little training or experience with it. In the end they found no problems with the setup and configuration I had when I called.
Stay away from this one. I'm rating the WPC54A as one star because there isn't a "zero star" rating.
14 Windows XP Users Beware
I am quite disappointed with this product. First of all, did anyone mention that "Turbo Mode" doesn't work if you are running Windows XP? The only place where I see this mentioned is in the Troubleshooting section of the Installation Guide. Second, 152-bit WEP encryption is not available. The highest value available from the drop-down is 128 bit. Both of these problems are present even after I updated to the latest driver. To me, this is false advertising. There are many other minor problems as well. The installation guide warns against using the Setup program supplied on the CD-ROM if you are running XP. We supposed to just use Windows XP to search for the driver from the CD. This gives me an impression that the product was not ready and was rushed out of the door. Second, the supposedly more detailed User Guide on the CD-ROM is nothing more than a re-phrase of the Quick Installation Guide. Why bother? Finally, who in their right mind will ship their Access Point with MAC Filtering turned ON? It wasted me an hour to figure out this was the reason why the connection wasn't working. Once you know about all the little problems that I mentioned here, the entire setup should take no more than 10 minutes for a technical person. Instead, it took me almost two hours, and I consider myself very technical. I am giving two stars instead of one because once I finally set it up, it works pretty well througout my small two-story house. I get a reported 54Mbps if the laptop is right next to the Access Point. Other than that, don't even think about 54Mbps. From the next room, I get between 12Mbps and 48Mbps. From a different floor, I get between 6Mbps and 24Mbps. Keep in mind that these are just the reported speeds. The true speeds are roughly half of these numbers, as have been well documented in PC Magazine testing. In any case, I'll take these numbers any days for the benefit of having wireless freedom.
15 Disappointing Product
I have to agree with another reviewer; the card seems like a great deal, but it just doesn't work. After several e-mails back and forth with their "technical support" department, they stopped responding. The basic problem is after running for a while, the card will lock the computer forcing you to remove the card to restore the computer. Purchased a DLink DWL-A650 as a replacement and have not had a problem. Linksys will not take the card back for repair or exchange. Most people are having problems with Windows 2000, but my problem was with Windows XP using a Dell Inspiron laptop.
16 Caused laptops to hang
I purchased two of Linksys' 802.11a PC Cards, due to pleasant experiences with Linksys products in the past. However, this product caused two laptops (Dell Latitude C840, Toshiba Portege 3480) to hang. The laptops were both running Windows XP. I contacted Linksys' technical support, who stated that the problem was due to IRQ conflicts, and that I would have to contact the laptop manufacturer technical support to reassign the IRQs; however, Dell's technical support confirmed that the IRQs cannot be reassigned. I again contacted Linksys' technical support who told me that the product was not compatible and that I should return it.
17 Win2k OS issue & heat factor
Unit runs hot, and doe not work under Win2k. Unit hangs within 1-15 minutes. Pulling card out of slot resolves the issue, reinserting resets cards, but hangs again within 1-15 minutes.
Tech support (in Philippines) cannot help. Issue under review by Linksys.
18 Outstanding Product
The WPC54a from Linksys is clearly a must-have for all of your wireless needs. Compatible with the WAP54a, this PC card offers up to 54 Mbps (72 Mbps in turbo mode) throughout your wireless network. Whether it is sharing an Internet connection or playing games within your LAN, you are going to get amazing quality. And, with the great standards and security of 802.11a, this product offers everything you could want. I set mine up in a few short minutes and can now surf the NET anywhere in my house or outside. I recommend to all.
